Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Like others, my first thoughts in speaking here this evening are, of course, with the victims of that tragic attack on Thursday a week ago but I wish to express my absolute confidence in Deputy McEntee, as Minister for Justice, in her record as Minister and her response to those tragic events of the past week or so.

Over the past couple of days, we have had the provisional propaganda machine telling us all that we need to listen. Speaking about listening, I have to ask the leader of the Opposition whether she has done any listening. Has she done any listening to the people in her own constituency, the businesses, the publicans, the workers and the restaurateurs? All they have heard from her and her party over the past ten days is absolute nonsense, talking down the city that so many of us love and talking down the businesses, and putting those businesses, for the information of Deputy Doherty, as he shakes his head, at risk. Many of them do not know if they will reopen their doors after Christmas. Many of their workers do not know if they will have a job to return to. Rather than uniting behind our capital, getting people back in, and driving that sense of safety and co-operation, we have, once again, as on average every three months, Sinn Féin tabling a no-confidence motion in a Government Minister. The party has absolutely zero ideas of how to be an Opposition party and Lord knows what it would do if it was a Government party or, God forbid, it takes over the Ministry for Justice.

I am proud of Deputy McEntee as the Minister for Justice. I am proud of her record. I am proud of my party's political tradition going back to the foundation of the State and the foundation of An Garda Síochána and I hope my political record and my party's political tradition does not haunt families and communities around this State, north, south, east, west, to this day.

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